What if a "Gay Gene" exists?

[tqualey]

**This is nothing but an emotional, out-of-control, rant. Calling members names is not acceptable on CAF. In my opinion, you owe Moore11 a genuine apology - and then to all of us that have suffered through this poor excuse of a post.

Now, if you want people just to agree with you - why not find a list that supports you way of communicating.

But, until you apologize and then demonstrate less hostile behavior, I am not responding to you.**

 

[Jules_Verne]

Jules,

I commend your tenacity. I don’t know your faith background, but you are far more patient and logical than I am. Go to. A fellow health care worker with a heart and a brain.

In response to my various detractors, I’ve received very few civil, reasonable responses to my posts and have responded with reason when I am approached that way. I don’t know if its the culture of this board, cause its certainly not the style and tone of any Catholics I’ve ever known, but I’ve heard very few referrals to information or, gasp, consideration for my point of view, which is driven by the compassion I was taught from the get go.

What does come immediately are accusations of dishonesty, ignorance, being a mouthpiece for the mythical “gay lobby” or “lamestream media” or drawing inflammatory comparisons between gay sex and murder. I think its known I’m a hospital chaplain, so one might see how I’d get angry at that kind of talk.

Why do I continue to post here? As a matter of fact, I won’t, but it has been an interesting education.

I work with many terminally ill patients and I worked at the Amor Y Vida orphanage in Merida, Mexico. The disinformation posted throughout this wbsite is shocking to me and it is very dangerous and irresponsible to spread falsehoods about such a dangerous disease. It’s a topic that hit a nreve for me. I really respect the work you do, you need to be a strong person to have a job like that and give spiritual care to patients.The Church has so many wonderful programs in Mexico, and they fight for the rights and well being of the poor and indigenous. I still give money to Catholic wrks charities like Pax Christi. I have serious problems with the Church and will not blindly follow it? And the pedophilia scandal and its cover up is unforgiveable.

But the Vatican, for me, is not what draws me to the church, nor the cardinals or the hierarchy. But the churches, individually, are another story. Churches are the lifeblood of many communities. In many places, the clergy are the only ones speaking for the people. I have nothing but good things to say about the parish I grew up in (it was a very liberal denomination).

It is easier for Moore to believe I hate the Church, hate papcy, because that makes him able to hand wave my arguments as well. I have seen first hand priests and nuns from good families give up everything to like in the slums and seek to educate some street kids. I have seen a priest holding the hand of a gay man dying of AIDS. I love going to St Anthony’ feast every year. I love that wherever I travel in the world, the mass is always the same, just in different languages, so that it always feels like coming home. Every parish priest I’ve had has been a kind, loving leader I respected.

I am dismayed at the new Pope, though I can’t say I hate him. Frankly I don’t care enough about him to hate him. But I loved John Paul II as much as anyone, and his picture is on my rosary. I love many many things about the church and still attend mass irregularly, but I no longer have faith in the hierarchy and much of the dogma, so I cannot honestly call myself a Catholic in good faith. So no, Moore, my opinion is not clouded by reason. reason forced me to realize I could no longer blindly follow.

I will say I takke great offense at Moore’s comment that only catholics have the right to pass moral judgement. guess what, you don’t have a monopoly on morality. Morality is a social construct, its the act of a society establishing a set of rules and role expectations. Now, It is certainly your right to say that morality of the Catholic Church is what you consider most important, but that doesn’t make it objectively true. And it certainly doesn’t make it the ONLY morality. I have lived and traveled all over the world, and the most peaceful, tolerant, kind, socially stable, happy, and wonderful places I’ve lived have been in larrgely secular societies. I’ve live amongst wonderful Christians, wonderful atheists, wonderful Jews, wonderful Buddhists. Etc. And many of those non christians were better people than I or you could ever hope to be. Have you ever even read the tao te ching, the Taoist’s main text? Its beautiful, with none of the rape, killing, slavery so common in the Bible. There is the best book of morals I have ever read.

You do not own morality. Consider your willingness to lie, trivialize rape, and condemn all non Catholics as less than yourelf and incapable of moral judgement. You would make a poor stewart if you did.

 

[Holly3278]

Many diseases are genetic but that doesn’t mean God caused them. It means that it is a result of the fallen world we live in.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Buffalo,

I came across an interesting site giving stats on homosexual ‘marraige’ & divorce contrasted with heterosexual marriage & divorce. It was in interesting read and had a couple of interesting items in the data that caught me by surprise.

Here is the link: nationalreview.com/articles/299944/gay-divorcees-charles-c-w-cooke#

God bless

Source?

 

[davidv]

I work with many terminally ill patients and I worked at the Amor Y Vida orphanage in Merida, Mexico. The disinformation posted throughout this wbsite is shocking to me and it is very dangerous and irresponsible to spread falsehoods about such a dangerous disease. It’s a topic that hit a nreve for me. I really respect the work you do, you need to be a strong person to have a job like that and give spiritual care to patients.The Church has so many wonderful programs in Mexico, and they fight for the rights and well being of the poor and indigenous. I still give money to Catholic wrks charities like Pax Christi. I have serious problems with the Church and will not blindly follow it? And the pedophilia scandal and its cover up is unforgiveable.

And has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand and diminishes your credibility.

{snip}

 

[feed_me]

Matthew 19: 12. That is all I can say.

 

[CopticChristian]

yes my apologies, I should have done that first. I did go back and edit my post to put it in, but you had already posted your reply by that time.

Again, if you folks are using “natural order” in a different sense than I am, then that obviously changes things.

JV,

Why did you not define your understanding of Natural Order? What do you understand Natural Order to be?

 

[CopticChristian]

Also, as I stated before, in the time of Galileo, geocentrism was a sacred doctrine of the Church. It was upheld by multiple Bible passages. To refute this with heliocentrism could (and for some, did) result in death by burning. I refuted earlier claims that the problem was extrapolating theology from heliocentrism, that is incorrect. Simply stating that heliocentrism was a fact was itself a heresy that could be punished by death. Then, with Galileo, the reigns were tightened to the point that even discussing the merits of heliocentrism was considered heresy without even saying it was factually true! And this belief persisted for *hundreds * of years after the heliocentric theory was first popularized in Europe by Copernicus.

We all know now the Church was wrong. For centuries, across many many different Popes and colleges of cardinals, the Church was consistantly wrong. The earth does move around the sun, despite Bible passages that say otherwise. The Church burned to death good and pious men on the basis of this wrong belief, and ruined the lives of others like Galileo and his supporters.

Why can the Church be wrong on this matter and not on homosexuality? How can some people here say they will believe anything the Church hierarchy tells them just because the Church says it’s true, when historically the Church has burned scientists and doctors simply for coming up with medicinal or scientific theories that ultimately were proved correct?

And please don’t misunderstanding me in thinking I claim the Church has always been at odds with science in all cases. There have been many, many scholars whose important scientific work was lauded and even funded by the Church. Many cardinals, friars, priests, etc throughout history have themselves been prominant scientists or naturalists who contributed much to our scientific understanding (just look at Gregor Mendel!). But the Church can, and has been wrong, with innocent people dying terrible deaths as a result. Thus I cannot understand how someone can say that they implictely trust Church authority. Even if the authorities are being sincere in their beliefs that this or that thing is wrong (as opposed to them conspiring to withold truth due to malice), they can be wrong. We know this, because they have been in the past. Many, many times.

JV,

Trace the historical understanding of Homosexuality in the thinking of the Church and there is your answer. There is no concern for our genitals being the center of the universe.

 

[CopticChristian]

And as far as the “is homosexuality genetic?”

I think it is likely genetic, because it is common to see homosexuality in close relatives even when these relatives were raised apart from eachother and so could not influence one another. So for instance, if one is gay, they are more likely to have a gay sibling even i adopted out and raised separately. This indicates to me a possible genetic component to homosexuality.

I think it is most likely that genes can make one more likely to be homosexual, but that they won’t necessarily cause a person definitely to be homosexual. For instance, I work in cancer, and there are certain genes which make a person more likely to get a certain kind of cancer. but it is still possible to have the gene and never actually get cancer.

As to whether homosexuality is a choice; I think it is for some people. Sexual research pioneered by Kinsey and continued since his time has pretty consistantly shown that sexual orientation is a sliding scale, where at one end you have 100% gay, on another end you have 100% straight, and then purely bisexual is in the middle. I think some people are completely staight and could not be attracted to or fall in love with a person of the same sex even if they wanted to for some reason. I think some people are gay and could not be attracted to/love an opposite sex person no matter how much they want to. Then there are people who fall in between, maybe they’re typically attracted to one sex, but have had instances of attraction to another sex. Or maybe they are purely bisexual and like men just as much as women.

So whether it is a “choice” to be gay or straight I think depends on the person. For some people, they really can chose because they are attracted to both sexes. For others, nope, I think that they are just gay or straight and they simply don’t have the ability to be anything else.

Anyways, I don’t think it matters if its a choice or not. If homosexuality were 100% a choice I would still have no problem with it. Oh, your holy book says its a sin? That’s nice. Then you certainly have the right to follow the rules of your holy book and I will respect your adherence to those rules. But don’t expect me or anyone else to care to the point that we feel compelled to follow them also.

My Hindu friends think eating meat is about the worst thing you can do. I care as much about what your religion says is wrong in terms of homosexuals as you do that certain Hindu sects think meat eating is wrong. I respect your right to practice your religion and not commit homosexual acts, or any other acts that violate your beliefs. I do not think less of you for your religious adherence.

I also do not feel any obligation to enforce your personal religious morals on society, and I think it makes as much sense for you to expect people who don’t believe in your religion to feel guilty about breaking religious rules as for a Hindu to make you feel guilty about eating meat.

Now, if you’re talking about enforcing heterosexuality within your religion, where you tell members of your own faith that to be considered a true member of the faith, you must act a certain way, then that’s different. That is your right as a religious group to exclude people based on behaviors you find untennable to your faith. But once you start telling some agnostic that they have to follow Christian doctrine even though they are not Christian, then that’s where you move from religious belief into oppression.

Your mixing Cancer with Homosexuality is not logical. Cancer is varied in its cause. There are some Cancers with genetic component ie Breast. There are some attributable to environment ie smoking. There are some that occur spontaneusly because at this stage of the game we don’t know everything about Cancer. With that in mind knowing we do not know everything about Cancer it would be unsafe to draw any conclusions from whatever knowledge you assume about genetics and Cancer. Does the word Multifactorial mean anything to you?

Concerning Homosexuality I see no proof that it is genetic and believe it is choice. I have yet to see any data to sway me otherwise.

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

Do you know what I am emotionally invested in? Reason and logic instead of blind obedience to authority. That is why I am filling this thread with FACTS.

because the fact that geocentrism was considered part of Catholic dogma to the point that heliocentrism was considered heresy literally proves that popes are not infallable.

I don’t think I can call your doctrine of heliocentrism a heresy, but I can certainly call it misinformed.

Whereas the Sun may be “NEAR” the center of the solar system, it certainly is not the center of the universe, or even the galaxy, as it orbits around the center of the Milky Way.

My point, is, that the ‘center’ of anything depends on your frame of reference. I believe that the earth is the center of the universe because this is exactly where God determined that the pinnacle of his creation in this physical universe be located. And it’s a pretty nice place to live, too. And THAT is what is supported by the Bible.

Do you understand what the Church teaches about its own infallibility? Your posts would indicate that you are severely misinformed. Where the physical ‘center’ of the universe is, is a matter that is still not known. It certainly is NOT, as you suggest, the sun. Much in the same way that members of the Church were mistaken about the earth being located at the center of the physical universe and the relative motions of the other objects with respect to the earth, you are just as mistaken when you claim the sun is the center of the universe. The Church has never claimed that it is infallible with respect to understanding all aspect of the physical world. That is what you seem to believe, and that is a charge against the Church that you make in error.

 

[sunamcm]

Concerning Homosexuality I see no proof that it is genetic and believe it is choice. I have yet to see any data to sway me otherwise.

You simply aren’t looking. Is it possible that you have never known a homosexual? I have yet to meet a single homosexual who ever indicated that they had a choice. I have members of my own family who are homosexual and it was no mystery to anyone from a very early age. There is plenty of data to suggest that there is a genetic component, but there are also many other factors, such as birth order. Did you know that the probability of a second son being gay is higher than the first son and the third higher than the second? My point is that, whether genetic or otherwise, this is a naturally occurring variation. They have always been with us. Whatsoever you do…

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

I have yet to meet a single homosexual who ever indicated that they had a choice. … Whatsoever you do…

Debating on whether a temptation has its origin in our genes or in our environment would seem to be missing the point. Does it really matter from where the temptation arises aside from academic study? Doesn’t alcoholism show genetic links? Are not some children taught theft from a very early age?

Temptations can come from multiple sources. There is no sin in being tempted, unless we encourage the temptation. And no matter the source of temptation, from within us or from outside us, it is our responsibility to ACT in accordance with love, the basis of all Catholic morality. The source of our temptations do not excuse us from the requirement to love.